


The Merits of Candy in Bribing Children (For Their Own Good)

by pleasekalemenow



Series: This Is The Way (Mandalorian Fics) [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Mandalorian Adoption (Star Wars), Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Sign Language, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tusken Raiders Culture (Star Wars), You Are A Clan of Two, and I do mean that literally. Grogu has too much sugar in this one, basically. I mean not officially but, but that mostly manifests in vague things I say about grammatical structure, it PHYSICALLY pained me not to type Grogu I had to delete it so many times djdhej, set ambiguously post-s1 but pre-ashoka, tbh my understanding of tusken sign is based heavily on my asl knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28637472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleasekalemenow/pseuds/pleasekalemenow
Summary: Din’s concerned about how little the kid seems to be able to communicate. Sure, he understands him well enough, but... he decides it’s time to try another approach.- - -The child sets down his used lollipop stick and gibbers unintelligibly at Din. His tone sounds happy enough, and the sound makes Din’s heart clench. He smiles, beneath his helmet. “The candy you just ate and this candy,” he says, pointing at first the spent stick and then the red lollipop, signing ‘sweet,’ “are the same color.” He signs, ‘Color same.’ “Red. Now, you try.” He repeats ‘red’ before gesturing at the kid’s hands, and signing again. “Come on, kid. I know you can do it.”The kid looks at Din. He looks at the lollipop. He looks back at Din. He reaches up with a clawed hand to grab at his still-outstretched hand, cooing.
Relationships: Din Djarin & Grogu | Baby Yoda
Series: This Is The Way (Mandalorian Fics) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2098626
Comments: 37
Kudos: 176





	The Merits of Candy in Bribing Children (For Their Own Good)

Din has been worried about the kid for a while now.

Beyond the obvious— well. He isn’t really reactive to Din’s speech, at least not in a way that shows comprehension. He’s kept talking anyway, of course. He’s no parent, regardless of how he kids himself, but he remembers hearing that it’s good for kids to be exposed to language. Something about forming their brains, or maybe just about learning to talk from exposure. Din is hilariously uninformed. But when he first got the kid, he was barely responding to him at  _ all _ . Now he’s at least physically responsive to Din’s voice, even if that’s all he really gets, so. Din takes that as improvement, and continues talking to him. With the amount of trauma he must have experienced and with how slowly he ages, Din knows there are far too many variables for him to consider all of them fully. He does the best he can. 

Still. It feels like it’s not enough. Which is why Din has his foundling sat on the floor in front of him, with a bunch of lollipops in his hand to keep the kid’s attention. 

“Okay. Let’s try this again.” Din unwraps one of the lollipops— a red one— and holds it up. He puts the others in a pocket, having learned his lesson when the kid used his Jedi powers to steal them when he just set the extras down last time. The kid looks up inquisitively at the sweet, then looks up to Din, clearly wondering what he wants in exchange. “See the color of this? It’s red. _Red_.” He over-enunciates, and watches as the kid stares at him for a moment longer, then coos and makes grabby hands at the lollipop. 

Din sighs. At this point, he can’t help idly wondering if this is harder for the kid to understand without seeing his lips move. He knows he’s not deaf, since he’s responded to noise happening out of his line of sight in the past. Unless awareness of surroundings is another weird Jedi power? He doesn’t  _ know _ . “No, kid, I…” He trails off. It’s not fair to withhold rewards if the kid is just too young to speak, or if he doesn’t understand. He sighs again, and hands the lollipop to him anyway. “Okay. I have another red one. You can suck on that while I… figure something else out.” 

The kid babbles happy nonsense as he takes it and begins eating it with crunching noises that tell Din maybe he should try this again with something softer next time. He ponders, watching the kid. Maybe… the problem is that he can’t physically make the sounds? From his vocalizations, Din doesn’t suspect that to be the case, but he’s been surprised before. Or maybe he just doesn’t feel like using his voice. Din can certainly understand that. He hums, and gets out the lollipops, unwrapping eight of them and arranging them so that he’s holding all eight of them in color order with one hand. “Hey. Look here, kid. Okay?” He looks up at the sound, although whether that’s from the sound itself or from understanding, Din has no way of knowing. “Good.” He signs, deliberately, as he repeats the praise. “ _ Good _ .” Tusken sign is very flexible, thanks to how often members lose limbs and fingers. Which is convenient when Din is signing one-handed. “I’m going to teach you colors. Okay? Colors.” He signs and speaks slowly, trying to solidify the link between the meanings of his signs and his words. It’s pretty terrible, grammatically. Sign leaves out many words, so the translation isn’t exact, and the order really  _ should _ be a bit different, but hopefully it’ll be enough to help the kid gradually gain some level of communication. 

The child sets down his used lollipop stick and gibbers unintelligibly at Din. His tone sounds happy enough, and the sound makes Din’s heart clench. He smiles, beneath his helmet. “The candy you just ate and this candy,” he says, pointing at first the spent stick and then the red lollipop, signing  _ sweet _ , “are the same color.” He signs,  _ Color same _ . “Red. Now, you try.” He repeats  _ red _ before gesturing at the kid’s hands, and signing again. “Come on, kid. I know you can do it.”

The kid looks at Din. He looks at the lollipop. He looks back at Din. He reaches up with a clawed hand to grab at his still-outstretched hand, cooing, and Din can’t help but chuckle softly and fondly. 

“Aw, kid.” He gently squeezes his hand with one finger before easing it back down in front of himself. “Can you try for me? I’ll give it to you if you can sign this.” He repeats the sign, and carefully moves his kid’s hands to form the beginning hand shape. “You can heal people. I know you can do this.”

The kid blinks up at him with his big eyes, then slowly and cautiously moves through the sign. Din can’t contain his excitement. 

“ _ Yes! _ Good, kid—” He remembers to sign  _ good _ , and realizes the kid seems a bit startled by his outburst. He scoops him up with one arm to set him in his lap. “You did good,  _ ad’ika _ .” He coos over him quietly, and positions him so he can still sign while holding him close. The kid gives him a little smile, babbling, and Din chuckles fondly. He returns to loose signing. “So good. Those two are the  _ same _ , red. And  _ this _ one is green!” He skips a few colors, figuring it’s more important to establish the concept of same and different than the correct order of colors in the rainbow. “Green is different from red. But this candy is the same color as you.” He points at the lollipop and signs  _ green _ before pointing at the kid and repeating the sign, then signing  _ same _ . “Understand?”

The baby babbles a bit more, sounding almost like laughter, and makes Din’s heart soar when he signs  _ green _ without prompting. “Oh,  _ so  _ good _ , ad’ika,  _ such a clever kid.” He gives him a little  _ kov’nyn _ , prompting a soft giggle from the kid. “I’m so happy you understand.” He repeats,  _ happy.  _ “Here. You can start with the red again while we continue the lesson.” He hands the lollipop to his foundling, who sucks and crunches happily on it as he walks him through the other signs slowly and patiently. He has plenty of lollipops, and plenty of patience. And, for once, he feels like he’s actually done something right by this kid. He was beginning to fear he never would. Still. Somehow, it’s hard to worry too much when there’s a happy baby signing and giggling in your lap, bleeding you dry of candy. His concerns will wait. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! There is. A pretty decent chance that I’ll write a follow-up to this tbh. I have a lot of feelings about them and it’s a crime that there isn’t more Clan of Two content.  
> If you enjoyed, please kudos and comment if you’d like to grant rights! You can find me on tumblr @autistic-din-djarin (for Star Wars content) or @violinspector (my main). Take care of yourself!


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